The Tragic Tale of The Yodeling Beefalo
by Flashing The Floods
Summary: Mikasa likes the laundromat well enough. She likes the girl she always sees there too, probably. Modern AU. Crappy, failure attempt at fluff-ish Mikasa/Sasha femslash.


**Author's Note: Crappy, crappy, worthless, stupid, aimless one-shot that I thought up when I was taking a shower. Super cliche, this must've been done like a hundred-million times before. But maybe not for MikaSasha? Dunno. Didn't find one for MikaSasha, anyway o.e'**

* * *

_do you have a reason?_  
_do you have a reason for me?_  
_can i be the girl that you met in a coin laundry?_

_— lisa mitchell_

The laundry room in Mikasa's apartment sucked, to put it frankly. The water pressure was bad, it was always crowded, and she had the kind of asshole neighbors that would take her stuff out of the washing machine as soon as her back was turned and dump their own crap in. In fact, she very nearly got kicked out of her apartment for throttling one of those said asshole neighbors when she caught him in the act. You'd think it would be the other way around, and that he would get booted out for being a washing machine mooch, but the landlord didn't see it that way.

That's why she started going to the coin laundry. She supposed she could've just done her laundry at Eren's place, or Armin's place for free, but the coin laundry was closer and it wasn't particularly expensive. Not to mention, the laundry soap was provided. That was a nice perk, especially since it was the top brand's ultimate formula. Daisy-scented too. Badass laundry that smelled like a flower for two coins a wash wasn't a bad deal at all.

There was business, but never too much of a crowd when Mikasa lumbered through the door, full basket in hand. However, one person almost seemed to be a permeant fixture. A lanky brunette girl who, oddly enough, always had a baked potato. She was usually there before Mikasa was, sitting on a bench and eating her potato by the forkfuls while her clothes swirled in the washing machine. But even if she wasn't there before Mikasa, she would always arrive before Mikasa left.

Mikasa noticed her simply because she was interesting. Most people didn't eat baked potatoes in laundromats, and besides, she never saw one person there as consistently as she saw this girl. She may have seen the same person once or twice, or perhaps even three times, but Potato Girl was the only one who was always there. Because she was familiar, Mikasa often chose the washing machine next to hers. Mikasa also noted that on the rare days Potato Girl showed up after her, she would do the same and chose the washing machine next to Mikasa's.

Mikasa smiled at that, a small, fleeting twitch on the lips of amusement.

Now, Mikasa was not a big talker. She disliked trivial chitchat that only existed for the purpose of it being spoken, and she was always just a reserved person. She liked to keep to herself and her own company, or else the company of the few people she held close, and she didn't understand why so many strangers felt the need to trade idle words. Naturally, she didn't usually start conversations. Potato Girl didn't either. As Potato Girl became increasingly accustomed to Mikasa's presence, she would begin to nod greetings, or wave on the off-chance her hands were not full.

Mikasa would nod or wave in turn, but she didn't speak. Neither did Potato Girl.

No, Potato Girl didn't talk, she made sounds. She would lick her lips nosily and hungrily before she dug into her baked potato. She would tap her fork against the styrofoam container when she was finished. She would hum off-key to songs Mikasa didn't know and murmur the lyrics almost inaudibly under her breath. She would kick her legs back and fourth on the bench and her beige converse would scuffle against the cleanly tile. Mikasa liked to listen to her, really.

Why? She wasn't sure. Maybe because it was a little entertaining, especially since these little sounds weren't something Potato Girl made consciously.

Eventually, however, Potato Girl would talk to Mikasa. A warm, humid spring day, the first of the season and two months after Mikasa started bringing her clothes to the coin laundry, Potato Girl walked in in a lemon tank-top and denim capris and she spoke to Mikasa. She smiled at her with the basket of laundry in hand and the sun streaming in though the window behind her and shining on her bole-brown ponytail and she very cheerfully said;

"Nice weather we're having today, isn't it?"

Mikasa paused for a moment, soaking in Potato Girl's voice. It was a pleasant voice, pleasant in the kind of way the scent of fresh croissants is pleasant with a distinct country twang.

"It is," Mikasa replied simply.

"It seems a little warm to be wearing that scarf," Potato Girl said next, honeycomb eyes on the thick crimson garment encasing Mikasa's neck. She didn't sound critical or rude about it, just curious.

Mikasa fingered her scarf absently, nodding. In truth, Mikasa hardly ever took it off, even in the summer. It was her most prized possession. When she was an orphaned child, she'd been passed on from foster home to foster home. She was an older child and older children were much more difficult to adopt out than younger children, especially quiet, aloof ones like herself. She never expected to find a family; no, her family was dead. Another one wasn't going to come along and welcome her.

But one did. And when she didn't believe it, the boy who couldn't possibly be her brother wrapped the scarf around her neck and promised her that he was. Eren. And it...It was silly now, Mikasa knew. Just a token of childlike acceptance that should've been cuter than it was significant, except to Mikasa it was significant. The crimson fabric had been a lifeline then, a sign she was _loved_. She didn't take it off then, and she didn't take it off now. It was as simple as that. Well, unless she had to wash it, of course. Cleanliness was a necessity.

But she couldn't explain all that to Potato Girl. So she just said, "It's important to me."

"Oh." Potato Girl nodded and dumped her basket into the washing machine. She didn't say anything more, so neither did Mikasa.

Their next conversation took place only a week later. Mikasa entered the laundromat with her basket of dirty clothes in hand. Potato Girl was sitting on the bench as usual, digging into her baked potato while her clothes were being washed. She looked over when Mikasa approached and waved, chives and bits of potato on her smiling lips. Mikasa nodded in greeting and put her clothes into the washing machine beside Potato Girl's, pouring in the soap and then plopping down next to her on the bench.

Potato Girl finished her meal shortly before the washing machine stopped. She gathered her clothes and tossed them into the dryer, fishing in her pocket for a coin. Upon finding none, she let out a low wail.

Mikasa tilted her head slightly and looked to her.

Potato Girl looked back, cheeks filling with heat as she gave Mikasa a sheepish smile. "Do you suppose I could borrow money for the dryer?"

Mikasa blinked mutely. Potato Girl's smile cracked with desperation. Mikasa took a coin out of her purse and passed it over. "Don't make this a habit," she warned in monotone, fully aware of how some people would try and take advantage of you the second you did something nice for them.

"I won't," Potato Girl promised, relief washing over her face as she pushed the coin into the slot. She hit the button and the dryer started tumbling. "Thank you, um...Well, I never did get your name." She rubbed at the back of her neck, inquisitive eyes on Mikasa.

"Mikasa."

"I'm Sasha."

"It suits you," Mikasa told her plainly.

"Oh yeah? Hehe, I guess it does." Sasha beamed. "'Mikasa' suits you too. It's very pretty."

"You wouldn't be flattering me because I paid for your dryer, would you?" Mikasa smiled just slightly, allowing a shade of her deeply buried humor to show.

"Not at all," Sasha chuckled sheepishly. She then blinked, surprise alighting her honeycomb orbs. "Hey, I just noticed. You're not wearing your scarf today."

"It's in the dryer," Mikasa explained, indicating with her thumb.

"Gotcha." Sasha nodded and knitted her fingers together as she stretched her arms out in front of her, back cracking softly.

"Why do you always eat baked potatoes?" Mikasa asked suddenly. She'd always been mildly intrigued by this and now that she and Pota- Sasha were talking, why not?

Sasha stopped stretching and went limp, eyes as bright as her impish grin. "Because baked potatoes are tasty," she answered.

Mikasa supposed that was probably the best answer there was to that question. Even though she had gotten here after Sasha, her load of laundry was smaller and the chime of the dryer as it stopped told her it was time to leave. She gathered her clothes in the basket and nodded a farewell. The tinkly ding of the bell as she pushed out the exit punctuated Sasha's 'goodbye.'

It wasn't until the next morning Mikasa discovered she didn't have her scarf. Very real panic began to sizzle in the pit of her gut. She franticly leapt to her feet and rampaged through her closet to be sure; no, _not_ to be sure. She wanted to raid the closet and find it, she wanted the closet to tell her she was wrong. But it didn't. Her hands shook as she pillaged her dresser drawers, thinking, _hoping_ that maybe she put it in a different drawer because she was tired when she came home that night, and she'd done it before.

The dresser was as cruel as her closet. Mikasa yelped aloud then, a tiny high-pitched animal sound. She probably hadn't made a sound like that since she was a forgotten child, slipping past gazes and growing alone quietly in the background. Knowing she must've left it at the laundromat, Mikasa blinked back the stinging drops in her eyes (look at her, anyone normal would think she's ridiculous, an adult woman crying over a scarf like that, but they just can't understand how important it is) and crammed her feet into her boots.

She bolted out the door and ran the two blocks to the coin laundry at top speed, everything and everyone along the way just a flurry of white noise in the background. She bursted through the door and charged up to the desk, panting and pale and almost imperceptibly trembling with the cavernous fear that her most precious possession was lost to her.

"The lost and found," she said to the worker there, a rather genial fellow by the name of Marco. "I need to see your lost and found." Despite her clenching heart and thrumming nerves, Mikasa managed to remain outwardly calm. She always had a great poker face.

"Oh, sure." Marco offered her a friendly smile and led her to a bin in the back. The back wasn't much, so to speak. Just a room lined with shelves of detergent with a small, beaten up couch and a boxy television. And, of course, the bin of clothing that had gone astray. Mikasa pawed through it twice, heart sinking down to her deflating stomach. Her scarf wasn't there. _Her scarf wasn't there._

She lost it.

Quite close to shedding tears, she rose to her feet. "I was mistaken," she muttered to Marco. "It isn't here."

He apologized and Mikasa left, shoulders slumped and fingers touching her naked neck. She almost called Eren about it, though she changed her mind. He probably would've offered to get her another one and that...Well, it just wouldn't even come close to being the same.

* * *

Mikasa shuffled into the laundromat the following week, bell announcing her arrival. Her basket was short an item, and she could still feel the minute change in weight. Sasha was there like usual, in the act of dumping her clothes into a washing machine. She must've just got there. Mikasa quietly approached and claimed the washing machine next to hers.

"Hey, Mikasa," Sasha greeted as she shook out the last of the socks clinging to her basket.

"Hello," Mikasa replied softly, emptying her own basket.

"I have something for you," Sasha said next and dug through her camouflage bag that Mikasa wouldn't quite call a purse. "It fell out of your basket before you left last time, but by the time I noticed, you were gone."

Mikasa's heart jovially jumped in her chest as Sasha pulled out her scarf. Mikasa gasped aloud and snatched it from her grasp, holding the familiar material to her face and nuzzling her cheek into it. A warm, safe feeling seeped from its wool to her skin and Mikasa quickly wrapped it around her neck, where it was always supposed to be.

"Wow," Sasha breathed a laugh. "You must've really missed it. I'm glad I pick—"

Mikasa took Sasha by the shoulders and kissed her hard, right on the mouth. It was more of a thank you than she could ever put into words. She pulled back after fifteen seconds or so and then calmly and silently took a seat on the bench. Sasha still stood, honeycomb pools widened to dinner plates and roses unfurling in her cheeks.

"Mikasa," she breathed after a moment, sitting beside her as she dug something else out of her un-purse. A styrofoam container Mikasa would recognize anywhere. "Would you like to share my potato?" The corners of her lips lifted in a gleeful little grin.

"Yes." A genuine smile pulled at Mikasa's own lips.

"Great," Sasha giggled happily and took off the top of the container. Steam rose from the potato and tickled at their noses. "But you should know, I only have one fork."

"That's perfect," Mikasa told her earnestly.


End file.
